Presidential debate 101: Is Romney right about $716 billion in Medicare cuts?
In Wednesday's presidential debate, the GOP's Mitt Romney cited ill effects from $716 billion in cuts to Medicare contained in Obama's health-care reform law. Here's a look at what fact-checkers say.
In Wednesday's presidential debate, the GOP's Mitt Romney cited ill effects from $716 billion in cuts to Medicare contained in Obama's health-care reform law. Here's a look at what fact-checkers say.
Medicare has been a hot topic this campaign cycle, and it came up again during Wednesday鈥檚 debate between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Mr. Romney brought up a point he鈥檚 hit hard before 鈥� that with the passage of his health-care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama is responsible for $716 billion in cuts to Medicare.
"If the president were to be reelected you're going to see a $716 billion cut to聽Medicare," Romney said. "You鈥檒l have 4 million people who will lose Medicare Advantage. You鈥檒l have hospitals and providers that鈥檒l no longer accept Medicare patients.聽I鈥檒l restore that $716 billion to Medicare."
Decoder has taken on this claim before, but with the dollar number in the spotlight again, let's take a look at how other news outlets are decoding this claim.
After the debate, the Tampa Bay Times鈥� PolitiFact rated Romney鈥檚 claim聽as 鈥渉alf true.鈥� It explains exactly where the number, $716 billion, comes from:聽A Congressional Budget Office report聽determined that between 2013 and 2022, the Affordable Care Act would reduce the amount of federal spending on Medicare by $716 billion.
But PoltiFact clarifies that those spending reductions would come at the expense of insurance companies and hospitals, not Medicare beneficiaries. Obama鈥檚 goal, it says, is to slow the growth in the program's expenditures, not cut the current budget.
The Washington Post has a nifty pie chart聽that shows how the $716 billion in Medicare cuts is divvied up.聽The Post reports that 34.8 percent of cuts are attributed to hospital聽reimbursement聽rates, though it predicts hospitals should be able to make up some of that loss. Some of the cuts will be funds for hospitals to encourage them to see more uninsured patients. Because the Affordable Care Act expands insurance coverage to all Americans, the number of uninsured patients hospitals must treat will be reduced.
The next slice of the chart shows 30.2 percent of the cuts coming from Medicare Advantage payments, which聽addresses Romney's debate-night claim that 4 million people will lose Medicare Advantage under the Affordable Care Act.聽This is the often-mentioned scale-back of payments to private insurers.聽
The Post and PolitiFact both point out that Medicare Advantage, a program in which the government pays for seniors to have private health insurance, on average costs more than private insurance, rather than keeping costs low.聽The National聽Committee聽to Preserve Social Security and Medicare reports that, on average, the US government pays 14 percent more per beneficiary per year for seniors in the Medicare Advantage program. It says payments to Medicare Advantage will not be聽eliminated聽entirely, but reduced gradually to bring them more in line with traditional Medicare.
The last third of the cuts, 35 percent, the Washington Post labels "everything else."聽
The Kaiser Family Foundation elaborates.聽"Other Medicare spending reductions include $39 billion less for skilled nursing services, $66 billion less for home health, and $17 billion less for hospice." The website points to additional benefits the聽Affordable聽Care Act will provide, such as an increase in prescription drug coverage.
Perhaps聽Mother Jones sums it up best with its quick Q&A on the $716 billion in cuts.
Are America's seniors getting the short end of the stick? "No probably not," it says; hospitals and insurance companies are. But does that mean Medicare beneficiares have nothing to worry about?聽
"It's possible that the cuts to providers could lead to slight cuts in quality or even, via some unintended backdoor mechanism, to some doctors dropping out of Medicare," Mother Jones writes. "And the cuts to Medicare Advantage might prompt insurance companies to reduce some of the extra benefits they've provided." However, it cautions, all predictions at this point are speculative.聽
In the end, Obama really is cutting $716 billion from Medicare, that's true. While the long-term effects of the cuts will benefit seniors by extending the life of Medicare, the effects on a doctor-by-doctor, hospital-by-hospital level are unpredictable.
As Mother Jones puts it, "There's no way to cut a bunch of money out of anything and guarantee that it will have no effect whatsoever." 聽